BLOOD ON OUR HANDS, YOUR CASH KILLS KIDS
The National Pension Reserve Fund (NPRF) IN WEAPONS PUTS MONEY BEFORE MORALS
invested: 500 million in companies that produce weapons of mass destruction notably nuclear weapons, missiles, and cluster bombs.
The NRPF will finance pensions for schoolteachers, nurses, prison officers,
garda and other public servants, after the year 2025. It will also help
to fund any social welfare payments made after that date.
This despite the fact that the NRPF was a signatory of the UN Principles
for Responsible Investment in 2006.
There is no ethical legislation in Ireland to prevent this kind of
investment. Norway, on the other hand, has excluded any firms involved in
nuclear weapons and cluster bombs from its similar fund.
Bertie Ahern has promised to campaign for a complete ban on the use of
cluster bombs. In the Programme for Government, the government said it
would seek an immediate freeze on their use. Yet Ireland has nearly 70
million worth of shares in seven of the world s main cluster-bomb
producing companies.
WHAT CAN BE DONE?
SIPTU and other unions in ICTU do not have any policy on ethical
investment of NPRF. Why? Because no members have raised it at branch
level/or had it carried at branch level to put forward to union
conferences as motion for endorsement as union policy.
So, anyone in a trade union must raise this issue by proposing a motion at
their branch level, getting it seconded and carried and put forward to
National conference as union policy.
BLOOD ON OUR HANDS, YOUR CASH KILLS KIDS
The National Pension Reserve Fund (NPRF) IN WEAPONS PUTS MONEY BEFORE MORALS
invested: 500 million in companies that produce weapons of mass destruction notably nuclear weapons, missiles, and cluster bombs.
The NRPF will finance pensions for schoolteachers, nurses, prison officers,
garda and other public servants, after the year 2025. It will also help
to fund any social welfare payments made after that date.
This despite the fact that the NRPF was a signatory of the UN Principles
for Responsible Investment in 2006.
There is no ethical legislation in Ireland to prevent this kind of
investment. Norway, on the other hand, has excluded any firms involved in
nuclear weapons and cluster bombs from its similar fund.
Bertie Ahern has promised to campaign for a complete ban on the use of
cluster bombs. In the Programme for Government, the government said it
would seek an immediate freeze on their use. Yet Ireland has nearly 70
million worth of shares in seven of the world s main cluster-bomb
producing companies.
WHAT CAN BE DONE?
SIPTU and other unions in ICTU do not have any policy on ethical
investment of NPRF. Why? Because no members have raised it at branch
level/or had it carried at branch level to put forward to union
conferences as motion for endorsement as union policy.
So, anyone in a trade union must raise this issue by proposing a motion at
their branch level, getting it seconded and carried and put forward to
National conference as union policy.
Now (January) is possibly the time to do this for all unions that will have a
conference this year.
The idea would be to include a clause that not only makes this union
policy but also instructs union to raise at ICTU conference to become ICTU
policy.
